Bumps ahead as Vimeo, YouTube respond to HTML5 video demand

Popular video sites YouTube and Vimeo have rolled out experimental new video …

When Google began soliciting feedback from users about what features they would most like to see in the next version of YouTube, the response was an overwhelmingly enthusiastic request for standards-based open video: users called for Google to support the HTML5 video element.

Google responded by rolling out an experimental HTML5-based player on YouTube that allows users to watch videos without having to depend on Adobe's Flash plugin. Vimeo, another leading video hosting website, followed suit this afternoon and rolled out an HTML5 beta test of its own. Of course, both of them are lagging behind DailyMotion, which launched its HTML5 beta last year.

The giants of the Web video are clearly responding to growing pressure from tech-savvy users to ditch Flash and adopt standards-based solutions that mesh better with the open Web. The HTML5 video element integrates seamlessly with conventional HTML content and can be manipulated with JavaScript and CSS, making it possible for Web developers to make their video player user interfaces match the look and feel of their websites.

In a blog post written today, Vimeo identified some of the key advantages of its new HTML5-based player. The player loads faster, offers smoother playback, and allows users to jump to various points in the stream without having to wait for buffering. In addition to fundamentally improving the user experience, HTML5 video will also enable content to reach platforms like the iPhone that aren't officially supported by Adobe.

Google first expressed public interest in adopting the HTML5 video element for YouTube last year when it presented an early mockup of a standards-based Web video player at the Google I/O conference.

As we explained at the time, Google and other Web content delivery companies have a lot to gain from standards-based video. It will enable them to reduce their exposure to lock-in and avoid proprietary video client technologies that are controlled by single vendors. Thanks to the standards process, the future of native Web video can be guided through an inclusive process in which stakeholders are allowed to participate.

It's also a win for users who will finally have the ability to choose between multiple interoperable client implementations. Although Adobe has taken some promising steps to open key parts of the Flash specification and has released the source code of some of the underlying components of the Flash player, independent developers contend that those moves have not been sufficient to enable the creation of a fully-functional third-party open source player.

Flash is often criticized by users who are frustrated with its poor performance and stability, high resource consumption, frequent security vulnerabilities, lack of conduciveness to accessibility, poor browser integration, and a multitude of other problems. The quality of the plug-in is even worse on Mac OS X and Linux, reflecting Adobe's lack of commitment to delivering a consistent user experience across platforms. Adobe is seemingly oblivious to these problems and often responds dismissively when engaging with the public. It's likely that frustration with Flash's flaws is one factor that is driving users to advocate standards-based solutions.

Challenges for standards-based video

Although HTML5 video has a whole lot of advantages, there are still some major challenges that need to be addressed before it can gain widespread adoption. One of the most significant challenges is that Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser has poor support for emerging standards and does not yet have an HTML5 video implementation.

Fortunately, even Microsoft is beginning to recognize the inevitability of standards-based video. Microsoft began collaborating with the HTML5 working group last year and publicly endorsed the HTML5 video element. It's still not clear if Microsoft plans to add the feature to its browser in the near future, but it is starting to look very likely that the company will eventually do so.

Another problem that is impeding ubiquitous adoption of HTML5 video is an ongoing dispute about what multimedia codecs should be used on the Internet. Google and Apple favor h.264 while Opera and Mozilla prefer Ogg Theora. Although Theora doesn't yet rival h.264 in performance and compression quality, its advantage is that it is thought to be unencumbered by software patents—meaning that it can be used royalty-free and distributed in open source software applications.

As we explained in our detailed examination of the codec debate last year, the future of h.264 licensing costs is somewhat ambiguous, making it a risky choice for the Web. There are also unanswered questions about Ogg's patent status, however, and some browser vendors are concerned about the risk of submarine patents. Another problem is the limited out-of-the-box support for hardware-accelerated Ogg playback in the mobile and embedded space.

This debate isn't any closer to a resolution today. Vimeo and YouTube are both using h.264, which means that their new HTML5 video players don't work at all in Firefox.

A seemingly obvious solution is for Firefox and other browsers that can't distribute patented codecs to simply expose platform-level video playback engines in the browser so that the HTML5 video player can leverage the codecs already installed on the user's system. Mozilla has resisted this solution for ideological reasons: the organization doesn't want to encourage adoption of codecs that can't be used royalty-free, because they fear that doing so would put open source implementations at a disadvantage and potentially disenfranchise content creators who can't afford the patent licensing costs.

Conclusion

Although there are still a number of important problems to solve before open video can displace Flash-based video playback on the Web, it seems likely that we will see more progress now that the major players are all on board and the users are enthusiastically calling for better standards support.

Originally posted by gypsumfantastic:I think Mozilla's stance is largely unsupportable. Refusing to support H.264 in preference to an inferior codec with a complex patent situation just makes them look silly.

Maybe what they need to consider is one version for the countries that endorse software patents, and another for those that don't. And maybe residing exclusively outside of the US might help as well, to remove more chances of litigation.

Sorry, h.264 wins. There's a huge and rapidly growing class of devices which can only play back h.264 via hardware decoding, those decoders support h.264 exclusively, and theora decoders are not even on the market. The largest provider of video on the web by far went to h.264. There is no tangible advantage to theora except the ideological purity which the vast majority of users don't care about, and if Firefox takes a stand here it's just going to turn into "that browser that can't do Youtube" and die.

Originally posted by Traddy:Maybe what they need to consider is one version for the countries that endorse software patents, and another for those that don't. And maybe residing exclusively outside of the US might help as well, to remove more chances of litigation.

Well, this kinda leaves Firefox users in patent-loving countries high and dry: with an even smaller marketshare for patent-free players, there'll be that much less motivation to produce content for them.

How can Chrome and Safari distribute patented codecs but Opera and Mozilla cannot? Chrome and Safari are just as free to download as Opera or Firefox, do Google and Apple just pay a fee to distribute with the browser?

As far as IE support goes, if they lose the ability to play video, if Flash ends up being tossed aside, then IE will also be tossed aside.

As is, users have to install a plug-in in Firefox to play Flash. This doesn't seem to be a problem, and it wouldn't be a problem for h.264 I already see FUD posted here about Theora, in addition to "some browser vendors are concerned about the risk of submarine patents." I'm sure they say this, but it's just a convenient excuse.

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"As we explained in our detailed examination of the codec debate last year, the future of h.264 licensing costs is somewhat ambiguous"

So I don't get the submarine patents FUD about Theora. How is Theora more susceptible to submarine patents than h.264? Does Fraunhofer certify that they'll defend against any patent allegations if you buy a license?

Originally posted by cuvtixo:As is, users have to install a plug-in in Firefox to play Flash. This doesn't seem to be a problem, and it wouldn't be a problem for h.264 I already see FUD posted here about Theora, in addition to "some browser vendors are concerned about the risk of submarine patents." I'm sure they say this, but it's just a convenient excuse.

It's an excuse, because they really don't care about the patents.

What they care about are the hundreds of millions of devices (most of them low-power and portable) on the market that support hardware h.264 decoding, and the zero of devices on the market that support hardware Theora decoding.

Google (Android phones, YouTube ubiquity) and Apple (iPods/iPhones) both have a huge vested interest in making sure the standard is h.264, and not Theora.

Originally posted by Solarion:So I don't get the submarine patents FUD about Theora. How is Theora more susceptible to submarine patents than h.264? Does Fraunhofer certify that they'll defend against any patent allegations if you buy a license?

Not really. However, look at all the firms aligned towards H.264. They control a significant portion of all AV patents, but more importantly, have the money to outlive any SCO style attack.

However, it is irrelevant, since Theora is unlikely to be "submarined". If you read back through these threads, however, no one has pointed out this issue (except the folks complaining that people will point out this issue). Some folks are erecting this strawman.

The bigger issue for Theora is the lack of hardware in the mobile arena. This is the only reason why H.264 is winning over Theora.

I can really understand Google's decision to go for h.264. There is more to it than just video quality, (submarine) patents and licensing costs. Many current devices support h.264, to name just a few: the PS3, XBOX 360, the iPhone and other mobile devices. Google is just preparing for a future of youtube users that don't use a computer.The license purists at mozilla and elsewhere will have to accept h.264 today has a far wider install base than Theora, and always will be.And to everyone doubting the claim of submarine patents: the danger is real. The only reason Theora hasn't been challenged is that no one has seriously used it (at least no one with deep enough pockets to be a rewarding target for a lawsuit). I'm not saying there is a real claim against Theora's code, I'm just saying someone will try to fabricate one, just to make a buck on software patents.

Originally posted by saturnblackhole:this may sound dumb but why dont browsers just support h.264 AND ogg and let website developers decide what format they want to stream their videos in.

On implementing h.264, patents are the sole issue. Without patents, this would be a non-issue. You can't make a Free (usually GPL) browser that doesn't provide patent rights to the downstream users. You could make a non-free plugin, however, depending on how you do it.

And it's not just embedded stuff. Netbooks can't do HD unless they can use hardware acceleration. VLC decodes h.264 and it is open source. Open Source is a good thing but if it prevents other good things from happening, it's just lame.

Theora is inferior to h.264 in every regard. It is not as efficient in terms of image quality/bitrate, it has no hardware acceleration, it is not in widespread use... Honestly, this is why I hate Mozilla sometimes.On the other hand, if Mozilla won't do it, I'm sure someone will just write some plugin for Firefox and everything will be fine.

How is h.264 better than Theora when it comes to submarine patents and licensing costs? I'm highly interested in a specific answer to the former, and the latter allegation of yours seems ludicrous. But I could be wrong.

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The license purists at mozilla and elsewhere

"Purists" is now starting to malign the person, and argue ad hominem. End it.

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will have to accept h.264 today has a far wider install base than Theora,

That is likely true. "Accepting" that fact doesn't mean that they have to license h.264, tho.

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and always will be.

That is possible, so long as we average citizens don't hold companies responsible. Patent-free ought to be the Way Forward, even if we have to accept that we're stuck in a patent morass (i.e. need to implement h.264 because of the installed hardware list, which is IMHO the sole argument in favor of h.264, particularly in the YouTube context) for this current codec generation.

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And to everyone doubting the claim of submarine patents: the danger is real. The only reason Theora hasn't been challenged is that no one has seriously used it (at least no one with deep enough pockets to be a rewarding target for a lawsuit).

How do you know that there is no or substantially less of a submarine patent problem for h.264 than Theora? Be specific! How do you know that "the only reason" Xiph hasn't been sued is because they're too small potatoes? Do you hold or can point to such patents? If so, the Xiph folks would love to hear from you so that they can work around them!

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I'm not saying there is a real claim against Theora's code, I'm just saying someone will try to fabricate one, just to make a buck on software patents.

IMHO a browser should only include its own codecs if the platform they are targeting doesn't provide a sufficient built-in set of codecs and a frameworks to use those codecs. It is much more likely that the codecs/framework provided by the platform will be better optimized for that platform (to the point of supporting hardware offload even) then anything a browser developer would choose to include (unless they want to invest a lot of time). Additionally it would likely expand the set of codecs available, hence improve the "reach" of the browser. Look... browsers use platform facilities for creating their UI, rendering things into windows, accessing local storage, network communication, etc. ...using a platform provided video/audio framework is just like these others.

Safari does this. Chrome does this. ...

Also the reality is h.264 and MP3/AAC are the de-facto standards in the market place on the mobile/embedded device side of the fence and have high use on the traditional personal computer space as well.

The video / audio tags already supports specifying multiple formats for a given tag... so I say browser developers should make available as many of the main stream codecs as possible and then let the content providers hash out what they want to provide... let the market decide which codecs are the ones to use.

Originally posted by paperflyer:Well, if Firefox won't do youtube, I won't do Firefox.

This is likely a lot of peoples' sentiments, including mozillians. It's unfortunate that YouTube has thrown in for a patent-encumbered codec. With pressure, this may not be a problem in the next generation. Unfortunately, it also illustrates the point that users need to learn about software patents.

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Theora is inferior to h.264 in every regard. It is not as efficient in terms of image quality/bitrate,

This has been shown to be wrong, especially for YouTube.

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it has no hardware acceleration

It depends. You can get DSP acceleration, but there's no dedicated hardware chips for it, no. (of course, older stuff doesn't do h.264 either). I've heard that DSPs are the future, which makes a lot of sense to me (easier to fix bugs, improve the product, ad new codecs, etc.)

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, it is not in widespread use...

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Honestly, this is why I hate Mozilla sometimes.

Because they can't license h.264 to downstream distributors because Fraunhofer won't let them? I think you're pointing the finger at the wrong place.

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On the other hand, if Mozilla won't do it, I'm sure someone will just write some plugin for Firefox and everything will be fine.

It's virtually guaranteed that a plaform fallback will be coming which will solve the problem neatly.

Originally posted by arcadium:However, it is irrelevant, since Theora is unlikely to be "submarined". If you read back through these threads, however, no one has pointed out this issue (except the folks complaining that people will point out this issue). Some folks are erecting this strawman.

I cannot see how you can say with absolute certainty that Ogg won't be submarined. Apple and MS with their well funded legal teams get submarined all the time. You would have to have an extremely tight argument to win a patent fight with them, but people still try it all the time.

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The bigger issue for Theora is the lack of hardware in the mobile arena. This is the only reason why H.264 is winning over Theora.

Its not the only reason. Video content creation is moving almost entirely to using h.264 as its recording and playback codec. Video editing and uploading services are migrating to predominantly using h.264.

Originally posted by mrsteveman1:Mozilla has the money to pay for an h.264 license should they choose to do so.

Not for a Free implementation, no.

Perhaps for the binary-only version.

I think the more realistic way to go would to be to fall back to the platform's multimedia system. Particularly since MSFT is certain to be pushing Windows Media.

Most users don't really care if it's Free or not, just that it works. They should handle this exactly like Moonlight is handling those binary codecs:

Ship the browser, if you don't want to use patent covered code, don't let it install the codec pack, i'm sure someone will find a way to get libx264 to work (and Mozilla should help them), the rest of the users will be happy to just let it download a licensed codec from Mozilla, which can then be counted and used to figure the licensing costs later on.

Firefox already has the ability to handle this situation, when Flash isn't installed it asks the user if they want to install the binary, closed source version. On Linux it also offers to install Gnash and swfdec. Do you suppose those two things aren't covered by any patents at all?

Originally posted by mrsteveman1:Mozilla has the money to pay for an h.264 license should they choose to do so.

Not for a Free implementation, no.

Perhaps for the binary-only version.

I think the more realistic way to go would to be to fall back to the platform's multimedia system. Particularly since MSFT is certain to be pushing Windows Media.

Most users don't really care if it's Free or not, just that it works.

True and very, very, very unfortunate. It's clear that users are not immune to patent problems, even if they're not directly sued.

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They should handle this exactly like Moonlight is handling those binary codecs, ship the browser, if you don't want to use patent covered code, don't let it install the codec pack,

Interesting approach. Is this discussed in a relevant bug?

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i'm sure someone will find a way to get libx264 to work

This is virtually guaranteed. I rather expect that they're implementing a platform-dependent fallback as we speak (don't know this for certain, but it's likley). And, as someone mentioned, it's always possible to put in a plugin.

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(and Mozilla should help them)

Pretty sure Mozilla can't help infringe on patents.

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the rest of the users will be happy to just let it download a licensed codec from Mozilla, which can then be counted and used to figure the licensing costs later on.

Because all of the entities that have contributed to h.264 own the patents to their work. To license h.264 you pay them royalties for its use. So there isn't much room for submarine allegations. The fact that you have to pay royalties is the sticking point with Mozilla.

The contributors to Ogg Theora aren't on as sure a legal footing.

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Originally posted by Solarion:How is h.264 better than Theora when it comes to submarine patents and licensing costs? I'm highly interested in a specific answer to the former, and the latter allegation of yours seems ludicrous. But I could be wrong.

Originally posted by Teno:Because all of the entities that have contributed to h.264 own the patents to their work. To license h.264 you pay them royalties for its use.

Umm, that's not how submarine patents work. How do you know that a party not involved with the companies doesn't have a patent that covers it? Unless you're claiming that the big companies have submarine patents on Theora that they'll assert. (In which case, please tell the Theora devs which ones so they can work around them!)

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So there isn't much room for submarine allegations. The fact that you have to pay royalties is the sticking point with Mozilla.

No, the sticking point is that there's no way to get a license that gives downstream distributors permission to distribute. If there were such a license that they could take out, I'm sure they would (if it were even purchaseable; 1 billion USD might be rather hard to come by...)

Originally posted by mrsteveman1:They should handle this exactly like Moonlight is handling those binary codecs, ship the browser, if you don't want to use patent covered code, don't let it install the codec pack,

Interesting approach. Is this discussed in a relevant bug?

I don't know, but Mozilla isn't going to go for it.

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Originally posted by Solarion:

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Originally posted by mrsteveman1:(and Mozilla should help them)

Pretty sure Mozilla can't help infringe on patents.

They're helping people install Gnash and swfdec directly in Firefox, using the standard platform package manager. How much more difficult would it be to offer a similar choice for a theoretical "libx264-firefox-plugin" package?

Originally posted by Killer Orca:How can Chrome and Safari distribute patented codecs but Opera and Mozilla cannot? Chrome and Safari are just as free to download as Opera or Firefox, do Google and Apple just pay a fee to distribute with the browser?

Yes, Google and Apple pay licensing fees to use H264, in their browsers as well as in the YouTube backend and Mac OS X.

As far as Mozilla goes the problem isn't just money, it is restrictions on what can be done with the software. The primary point of Open Source software is that anyone can modify the code and redistribute their modified version. Assuming that Mozilla could pay for a license if they desired, that would only apply to versions of Firefox released by Mozilla. Any modified browsers (like is shipped with Debian) would have to pay for the license themselves. In other words it would be illegal for people to use their modified versions of the browser until they payed patent license fees - this is completely antithetical to open source itself.

Furthermore, the MPEG LA has not agreed to set the license costs at a fixed amount (or increasing only with inflation). In fact they have already stated that they will likely be significantly increasing the licensing costs for streaming H264 over the internet. It is mindboggingly stupid to rally around a technology whose future licensing costs are unknown.

Given that anyone with an open source operating system will have to deal with the codec issue in some way or another, regardless of what happens with HTML5, I have no problem with browsers using the system codecs, but this licensing issue needs to be dealt with first.

You haven't thought through the full result of what you are arguing. If companies could not patent their ideas that takes away any motivation to create anything new. Why bother investing capital into create something new if your competitor could just easily copy your work without having to make an equal investment.

The reason h.264 has become so popular is because it is an excellent and highly flexible codec. That should be the litmus test. The best software should rise to the top.

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Originally posted by Solarion:That is possible, so long as we average citizens don't hold companies responsible. Patent-free ought to be the Way Forward, even if we have to accept that we're stuck in a patent morass (i.e. need to implement h.264 because of the installed hardware list, which is IMHO the sole argument in favor of h.264, particularly in the YouTube context) for this current codec generation.

They're helping people install Gnash and swfdec directly in Firefox, using the standard platform package manager. How much more difficult would it be to offer a similar choice for a theoretical "libx264-firefox-plugin" package?[/QUOTE]

It would work exactly the same; it needs to get coded first. It's (perhaps; this is always subject to a court decision and IANAL) not helping infringe to say that a plugin exists to address this format and help the user install it. If that's what you meant by "help" then I'd expect that to be fine.

Originally posted by Teno:You haven't thought through the full result of what you are arguing. If companies could not patent their ideas that takes away any motivation to create anything new. Why bother investing capital into create something new if your competitor could just easily copy your work without having to make an equal investment.

I'm not arguing against patents per se; I'm definitely arguing against the current implementation, however. Doubly so for the end-user who is only a bug getting crushed underneath all the big companies' heels as they duke it out in the courtroom and marketplace. Quadruply so for Free Software developers.

Originally posted by pavon:Given that anyone with an open source operating system will have to deal with the codec issue in some way or another, regardless of what happens with HTML5, I have no problem with browsers using the system codecs, but this licensing issue needs to be dealt with first.

the licensing of the OS is irrelevant. Users are really the ones who suffer here. Free implementations are hampered particularly due to their needing to keep downstream users' rights intact, but the average joe is hit by companies fighting over codecs (especially if I'm right that MSFT is gonna push Windows Media).

Wouldn't it be fair to say that Google is going this route because of the mobile video market? It seems as though h.264 is where the mobile market is going, and the fact is, it really doesn't make any sense for Google to go from using Flash on the main Youtube site and having to convert to h.264, to doing Theora, and having to convert to h.264. From a business standpoint that really makes no sense.

Because H.264 is already used in the iPhone, iPod and Windows Media Player on Windows 7 so if someone had a submarine patent they'd have been far more likely to have already sued Apple and MS etc already.

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Originally posted by Solarion:I think the more realistic way to go would to be to fall back to the platform's multimedia system. Particularly since MSFT is certain to be pushing Windows Media.

I doubt it, Microsoft seems to be on the MPEG4 bandwagon these days. AAC is supported in WM12 on Windows 7.